


Alucinari

by celluloid



Series: wandering mind [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Horror, Isolation, Mental Breakdown, Nightmares, Paranoia, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Sleep Deprivation, Unhappy Ending, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 23:45:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: Gingerly, Peter brings himself up into a sitting position. It’s fine. He’s fine. It was just a dream.He slowly shifts his knees up, hugging them to his chest. He rests his forehead down on top of them and begins to cry.(In the end, Peter won - but so did Beck. In more ways than one.)





	Alucinari

**Author's Note:**

> The MCU has really struggled with villains for a long time. But Mysterio? Oh, wow. They nailed it there.
> 
> He's one of the very few villains to have actually registered a victory in his movie. And he was so raw and unapologetic about it, it's fascinating. There's a lot of damage done there, if you're willing to really dive into it. And since his character is right up my alley, I really, really was.
> 
> This isn't a happy fic. I love Peter, but he gets a really raw deal here. (That's how you show love to your favourite characters, right?)

Peter’s eyes shoot open, his chest heaving in panicked, quick breaths.

He blinks rapidly, willing his eyes to adjust that much faster than they already do, too afraid to move. He does everything he possibly can to try to slow his breathing to a normal pace, and though he can still feel his heart going berserk behind his ribcage, he’s able to slow things down, resume some sense of normalcy.

The room remains dark. He remains the only one in it. The door is shut, the faint light from the hallway just barely cracking through. The entire apartment is silent. A glance at his watch confirms it is past four in the morning, and he’s old enough to know there isn’t really anything that goes bump in the night.

Gingerly, Peter brings himself up into a sitting position. It’s fine. He’s fine. It was just a dream.

He slowly shifts his knees up, hugging them to his chest. He rests his forehead down on top of them and begins to cry.

* * *

Peter’s gaze whips down, frantically looking at MJ. She stares up at him, eyes just as wild and freaked out as his, and he can read on her face that she’s at just as much of a loss as he is.

It’s still summer. They should have at least another month ahead of them of just hanging out and getting pizza and watching movies and kissing. And now he’s too scared to so much as say her name.

_Don’t incriminate her_ rings through his head as he starts to feel eyes on him.

_Please stop looking at me,_ he silently begs, not so much to the crowded New York street that’s staring up at him with an incredibly nervous energy, but to MJ. Everyone else’s eyes he can deal with, but he was with MJ first, and if anyone makes that connection—

London—

She’s still wearing the broken necklace, hasn’t taken it off, and though it suits her it never should have been broken in the first place because she never should have been in danger in the first place—

_Get out of here!_ Peter’s mind screams at him, so he does. 

He feels his phone vibrating against him as he swings up between the buildings. He doesn’t dare take it out now - not mid-swing - but it gives him an actual direction, finally: find the tallest, quietest building possible, crouch down on its rooftop, and pray nobody comes up there.

Normally, once freshly out of sight, Peter would take his mask off and inhale the not-quite-fresh air. It tastes a little better than taking it in through spandex, at least. But now, his stupid face plastered everywhere— God, it would at least be a little better if he wasn’t so awkward, imagine a good yearbook photo, what a concept— He doesn’t want to take it off ever again, even as he can feel the sweat plastered to his face.

He finds his rooftop, an older building, no fancy architecture (less likely a camera is on it, less likely to be inhabited by people who would actively choose to come to the rooftop in search of glory or amenities), and leans back against a power transformer facing away from the one door used to access this level. His heart is pounding with adrenaline and fear. He leans his head back against the transformer and takes a deep breath.

Then Peter pulls out his phone, and it takes everything in him not to instinctively throw it away (which, in his case, would involve him throwing it off the building).

He’d just posted a selfie to his Spidey Insta, like, twenty minutes ago. His Spidey Insta’s notifications are turned off, obviously. His personal account’s are not, because nobody cares about Peter Parker, but now he can see comments pouring in non-stop. Peter lets out a choked sob and goes to turn them off. He wonders if he should lock his account, but then figures the damage is done and it’s not like it can get much worse so maybe he’ll just abandon it instead.

_Don’t read the comments don’t read the comments_ goes off through his head like a mantra, even as he’s tempted to look at Spidey’s account. _Nothing good will come from this Parker_ ** _do not do it._**

He exits the app and sees the missed calls for the first time, social network notifications no longer there to drown them out. One from Ned. One from Happy. Seven from Aunt May. Oh god.

Nothing to be done there, he switches to missed texts instead and instinctively taps on Ned’s name first because he’ll almost certainly be the easiest to deal with.

_DUDE_ reads the first text. Then, immediately after, _are you okay?_

_I don’t know_ Peter quickly types back, and almost as soon as he’s hit send he flicks back to the main menu.

His eyes zero in on Aunt May’s last message: _Peter please call me_.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Peter’s switched back to the phone and already tapped on May’s name to call her when his heart stops for just a moment: _Am I being tracked?_

He’d taken MJ’s advice and installed a VPN before they’d left for Europe. He has no idea if it actually worked. If it’s still working. If it’s even active right now. If it ever was.

_am I being tracked am I being tracked am I being tracked am I being tracked_

“Peter!” Aunt May cries through his phone, snapping him out of it for a second. He whips his mask off so he can speak a bit more freely, but another sob leaves his throat, right into the speaker.

“Peter, are you okay?” Aunt May asks, and it doesn’t sound like she’s faring much better.

“I—“ Peter manages to choke out, but that’s as far as he gets before his breath hitches. He coughs as something goes wrong with his breathing for a second. “I should hang up, I’m probably being tracked—“

“FUCK OFF!” he hears May screaming through the phone, but it’s not at him, and now that he’s paying attention he quickly picks up on the sound of people pounding on the door faintly through the speaker. Then, to him, “I’m sorry, someone must have let the press into the building, told them where we live, I swear they are vultures. I’m not talking to any of them. Peter, are you okay?”

“Aunt May, I— no,” he says, and it’s weird how freeing that little two-letter word is. No. He’s not okay in the slightest. He brings his free hand up to his head, fingers violently digging their way through his hair as he rubs at it, coming down to grip the base of his neck. It hurts. He grips harder. “I don’t know what to do—“ And as his voice finally breaks, he realizes he’s crying.

“Oh, honey,” Aunt May says, and Peter just wants to lean into her voice. He actually does curl his body up and lean towards his phone a little. “I wish I could give you a hug right now.”

“I wish you could too,” he says. Then, immediately after, “I should go. I’m sorry you’re being dragged into this.”

“Don’t you dare hang up,” Aunt May says, and Peter thinks he can hears tears through her voice, too. “You have nothing to apologize for. I love you so much and I’ll always be proud of you, okay?”

_No,_ Peter thinks, _because someone is recording this call and they’ll use this as evidence against you. Stop talking. Stop talking. Stop talking._

But instead, all he manages to get out is, “I love you too.”

“Don’t hang up, okay?” Aunt May says again. “Happy wants to talk to you.”

* * *

Peter is gliding, something he’s quickly found is one of his favourite new activities. He’ll swing high up and then just let go and leave the wind to carry him, occasionally whipping out a web to navigate or regain altitude.

Of course he’ll never relinquish the Iron Spider suit - it stays tucked away, charging, to be used only when absolutely necessary because it was the greatest gift he’ll ever receive and he’ll never be able to replace it - but his new suit is probably his favourite. He designed it himself, he made it himself, there are no sneaky hidden features or surprises, it’s just all him.

And gliding is so freeing. Just drifting through the towering buildings of New York City is amazing. He can’t fly, he’ll probably never be able to, but he doesn’t need to - he has this.

At least until he’s suddenly flying face-first into a building that he swore hadn’t been there before. Fortunately he doesn’t break through the window or anything, but colliding head on at that speed right into fortified brick has definitely given him a nose bleed, at the least.

_Good thing my mask’s red,_ Peter thinks as he crawls his way to the top of the building. Seeing nobody there, he pulls his mask and a glove off and runs his bare hand under his nose, staring at the blood he’s stained it with.

Peter darts his tongue up above his lip and tastes iron. Whoops. It’s not like he carries Kleenex in this thing, either - he’s just going to have to try to staunch the blood flow and hope it stops soon.

Peter leans forward and uses his free thumb and index finger to pinch his nose. While he waits, he realizes he’s going to be late; hopefully not by too much, though. He spits into his hand to try to clean the blood off of it, then off of his face in between his nose and upper lip. He takes out his phone and flips the camera around to make sure he got it all, then pulls his mask and glove back on and jumps off the rooftop to get back on his route.

Five minutes later he’s in the dark corners of an alleyway three blocks from the theatre, hastily executing a change of clothes. (He’s gotten so good at it, too.) He casually saunters out and immediately collides with Ned, their noses smashing together.

“Owwww,” they both groan in unison, Peter lifting a hand up to check if his started bleeding again. Small miracles. “Where are you going?” Peter asks. “Theatre’s the other way.”

“No it’s not,” Ned says, pinching at his nose, his hand dragging down it before sharply releasing with a sniffle. “You got your wires crossed. Why don’t you take the subway anymore? Your sense of direction might improve.”

“What, and miss this view?” Peter asks, spreading his arms out like there’s webbing still there and looking upwards.

Ned cocks his head at him. “Do you mean to tell me you don’t miss unreliable service and frequent delays for no reason?”

They look at each other for a beat before they start laughing, Peter doubling over a little. “Come on,” he says after a moment, “we’ll miss the movie.”

After about a block, Ned looks behind them. “Do you get the sense someone’s following us?” he asks quietly.

Peter shakes his head, still strolling along happily. “Nah,” he says. “And I’d know.”

“Right, your Peter Tingle,” Ned says.

Peter stops in his tracks and shoots him an incredulous look. “Don’t call it— Don’t talk to my aunt.”

Ned shrugs, giving him a stupid grin in return, and they continue on their way. At least for another half a block, before he stops and looks behind them again. “I swear somebody is following us.”

“Nobody is following us, Ned,” Peter says. “Why would they be? Come on, let’s go.”

He takes another step forward. Another two steps.

And then hears a loud bang. He whirls around just in time to see the aftermath of Ned’s head exploding, brain matter flying through the air alongside bits of skull fragments glinting in the sunlight. They flutter on down to the ground in slow motion, taking their time, just as what’s left of Ned’s body slowly falls what would have been face-first into the sidewalk.

Peter rips his eyes past the corpse and stares down the barrel of a gun. Behind it, white teeth grin at him.

“Sorry, kid, but it has to be this way. It’s nothing personal - well, it kind of is.”

Peter screams.

* * *

Peter screams.

“Hey, hey, hey!” a voice says. There are hands gripping his shoulders, but it isn’t malicious or painful; they’re steadying. “Hey, it’s okay,” the tone is softer now, and Peter blinks, his own voice fading. He closes his mouth and blinks rapidly, then strains his eyes as he forcefully shrugs off the remnants of sleep.

The kind, concerned eyes of one James Rhodes meet his own. His face visibly relaxes as recognition dawns on Peter’s, and he lowers his hands from Peter’s shoulders, lightly tracing clockwise circles on top of his skin as he makes his way down and eventually off, letting his hands fall into his lap.

Peter blinks one last time and looks around. He finds himself backed up on a couch as he remembers: Happy had told him he was calling in someone to come get him, what was his location. Peter had near worked himself into hysterics refusing to say where he actually was; it had taken the shock of Happy actually screaming at him - a sound he had never, ever heard before - to snap him out of it and let Tony Stark’s best friend actually come pick him up.

He remembers, now: he’s in Rhodey’s apartment in DC, and he probably won’t be leaving any time soon.

Peter lowers his feet off the couch and back onto the floor. He shifts so he’s no longer forcing his entire body aggressively into the corner and instead sits in a more natural position, looking back at Rhodey. “Sorry,” he says. “I think I— I just had a bad dream.”

Beck’s grin broadens as he points the gun straight at Peter’s face. Ned’s body has just hit the ground. Peter screws his eyes shut and then blinks twice, rapidly, shaking his head slightly as he does so.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Rhodey says. It’s almost dismissive, except it’s clearly not. Peter thinks on how he was Mr. Stark’s best friend, what kind of person it would take to be his best friend, and can see the similarities in their personalities and how they would have gotten along so well for— decades? Longer than he’s even been alive?

He vaguely recalls Rhodey behind him on the battlefield’s aftermath. Blinks again, returning to the present as Rhodey keeps talking. “If it’s any source of comfort, I get them too.”

Peter looks up, almost in awe, at Rhodey’s serious face. He remembers Happy telling him that Mr. Stark had often been a mess himself and wonders if that meant he got nightmares, too. If it’s just one of those things they all have to deal with.

Not that he hadn’t had the occasionally reoccurring dream of a building falling on him and crushing him to death, but this was— That was just him. It sucked, but that was just him. To tell Ned he was wrong to worry and see—

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rhodey asks.

Peter thinks. Does he? “Yes,” his mouth decides before his brain does.

“One moment,” Rhodey says. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate.”

It was a really good idea, Peter thinks, hands curling around the mug that’s just a little too hot. It’s perfect. He stares into the little marshmallows bobbing up and down as Rhodey retakes his seat on the other side of the couch. “Alright, go for it,” he says.

Peter glances at the clock displaying the time on the shelf under Rhodey’s TV. Just past midnight. “Are you sure it’s okay?” he asks. “Like, you don’t have to go to bed or anything?”

Rhodey shakes his head. “No, I’ll be fine. This is far more important, anyway.”

Peter nods, takes a shaky breath, and blows on his hot chocolate before taking a sip. “How much do you already know?” he asks. “About Que— about Mysterio, and London.”

“Happy filled me in,” Rhodey says.

Peter nods again, well aware he’s stalling. “So he wanted to kill us, right,” he says. “In my dream, I was meeting up with Ned - he’s my best friend, he knows who I am and everything - and we were just going to hang out. Like it’s summer, that’s what we do, you know? We hang out. Only Ned was insisting something was wrong, that someone was following us. And I told him nobody was, because nobody was, and I can sense that kind of thing, so I’d know, you know? But Ned was right… and I watched his head explode. Mysterio shot him in the back of the head, and just like that, my best friend was— and I—“ And suddenly Peter has completely lost his voice, words lodging themselves in his throat as he looks desperately around the apartment for an escape, for something else to talk about.

“But he isn’t actually dead,” Rhodey slowly says. “Right?”

Peter looks back at Rhodey and swallows. “Right,” he says. He thinks about it for another moment, then nods forcefully. “Right,” he says with far more certainty in his voice. “You’re right. That didn’t actually happen. Ned’s fine.”

Rhodey smiles at him, close-lipped and sincere. There’s a certain spark to his eyes, not quite like Mr. Stark’s but along the same wavelength, Peter thinks.

“I get it,” Rhodey says. “I’ve had the best-friend-is-dying kind of dreams, too. They seem so real at first. But then you wake up and remember that everything’s okay. And gradually, they start to lose their impact, and you get on with life.”

“But your best friend actually did—“ Peter starts. Snaps his mouth shut, eyes widening in horror at what he’d just said. “I’m so sorry.”

Rhodey nods a couple of times, an unconscious motion like he’s quickly resetting himself. “Yeah,” he says after a moment. “The dream did come true at one point. But it’s okay. Healing is a process, and we’ll all get there.

“I wanted to ask you about something else, though,” he says, “if you’re feeling up to it.” Peter nods once, steady, and Rhodey’s gaze suddenly turns much more business-like. “How are you handling your identity being revealed?”

Peter takes a deep breath at that and worries at his lip a little. “Well, I turned off my phone,” he says, giving a weak little laugh. “So that’s helping.”

Rhodey smiles sympathetically. “This is the complete opposite of what happened with Tony,” he says. Peter looks at him curiously. “You’re young, you probably wouldn’t have been watching,” he continues, and his smile grows more genuine as his eyes focus on something in the distance, full on reminiscing. Peter thinks he can appreciate that: and on another level, it’s cool seeing how much Mr. Stark’s best friend loved him and still cherishes his memories with him. It’s nice.

“Tony just blurted it out,” Rhodey says. “He was given some bullshit story to say about Iron Man actually being his body guard, and he took one look at the card and just said, ‘I am Iron Man.’ We were all floored, though in hindsight, we should have expected that from him. It set off a wild press storm, and it was a pain in my ass - he was always a pain in my ass - but Tony relished the attention. He absolutely thrived in it. He took complete control and, well, it worked out pretty well for him.”

Peter smiles along with Rhodey at the memory. He definitely was not watching the press conference when it happened; he just remembers one day there was suddenly a superhero named Iron Man flying around and it was _cool_. His smile drops as he sees Rhodey’s fall, too, and look at him sadly. “God, you’re just a kid,” Rhodey says. “He asked for all of that. This is exactly the opposite of what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Peter stares down at his hot chocolate, suddenly realizing it isn’t all that hot anymore. He takes a big gulp to avoid answering the question, but eventually has to come up with a, “Yeah.” The marshmallows have long dissolved and he just stares into the liquid instead.

“You’ll get through this,” Rhodey says, putting his own untouched mug down on the coffee table and resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter looks at it, then at Rhodey. “For one thing, nobody knows you’re here, so you should be able to find some peace. Take a few days. For another, we may not have Iron Man anymore, but War Machine still carries plenty of clout.” He nods affirmatively. “A bit more bureaucratic, so it might take longer to get things properly sorted out, but it’ll be done correctly and cleanly and you’ll be fine. You have my word.”

The determination and sincerity in Rhodey’s eyes almost makes Peter uncomfortable. He looks away. “You don’t have to do all that for me, you know,” he mumbles into his mug, taking another drink.

“Yeah, I do,” Rhodey says. “And I want to. I know we don’t know each other very well, but I knew Tony better than anybody, and that man absolutely loved you. Clearing things up is the bare minimum of what I can do.”

Peter looks at Rhodey. He’s going to cry. He puts his mug down. He’s going to cry. He lunges forward, catching Rhodey off guard and enveloping him in a tight hug, resting his chin on his shoulder. Rhodey’s arms eventually wrap themselves around Peter, too.

“Thank you,” Peter says, looking past him. He’s crying.

“Of course,” Rhodey replies.

Rhodey goes to bed soon after that. He shows Peter the guest room first, though - Peter had been so exhausted when they’d first arrived he’d just passed out straight on the couch, Rhodey tells him - and tells him to get some sleep, he’ll see him in the morning. Peter thanks him, tells him he will, and waits until he hears Rhodey retire and is sure Rhodey is asleep before he gets back up and goes to the living room couch, turning the TV on at a low volume and finding literally anything that’s not the news to watch.

There is no way in hell he’s going back to sleep, not after that dream.

He can play it cool, though. Act like he got up a little before Rhodey did. Make him coffee, even! Be a good houseguest. Rhodey doesn’t need to know Peter has already had two full pots in order to make it through the night before he’d made coffee for the both of them. It’s fine, Peter is fine.

And really, Peter faces a pretty chill day ahead of him once Rhodey leaves for work, which now presumably includes fighting on his behalf. He takes one look at his phone before turning it back over, refusing to turn it back on. He feels horrible that he can’t talk to Aunt May or MJ or Ned, but they’ll all understand - they all know how bad this can be if it isn’t handled properly, and he doesn’t want to make things any worse for them by getting them labelled Spider-Man’s Accomplice or whatever. 

No. Phone stays off. Peter starts off his day by doing an impromptu mini-workout routine, going harder than he has in a while. He takes a shower and changes into the casual clothes Rhodey left for him, since it’s not like he had time to pack - literally all he has is his suit, what he’d been wearing under his suit, and his phone. He feels better. He switches to drinking copious amounts of water and feels even more awesome, awake and fresh and ready to take on the world except not really that’s far too scary at the moment this wasn’t what he’d signed up for at all.

He watches TV. He jumps up onto the ceiling and watches TV upside down. He tries to find if Rhodey has any video game consoles. Plays a little bit of GTA. Gets freaked out. Turns it off. Goes digging through Rhodey’s cupboards and decides he’s going to make them both spaghetti for dinner tonight, because it’s something he actually knows how to cook and hey, he was just in Italy, it’s perfect. Good houseguest. _Really good houseguest,_ Peter thinks, as he switches back to coffee and waits for the pasta to cook. 

The hardest part is waiting for Rhodey to go to sleep for the night well after dinner. The spaghetti made Peter logy. That and having been up for over 24 hours now is making his body want to pass out, but Peter does not want to pass out. Beck smiles at him. Peter is not going to pass out! But an hour after Rhodey has gone to bed Peter thinks he’s safe, so he stops doing pushups, quietly nudges his way back to the kitchen, and puts on another pot of coffee.

He has a fourth pot going a couple of minutes before Rhodey wakes up for the new day. Peter smiles at him and forces himself to stop twitching. Rhodey smiles back and, before he’s on his way out, reaffirms his promise. Peter thanks him. He knows Rhodey going to do everything he possibly can for him. He’s so grateful.

Peter’s second day plays out in a similar way to his first, except he doesn’t make dinner that night. But it’s cool, because Rhodey orders Chinese food, and the MSG helps Peter perk back up.

Peter looks at his phone longingly as he retires to pretend to go to bed, but no, he’s going to keep it off. It’ll be better for everyone in the long run. And besides, even if this takes longer than he’d like, at least he’s got it good here. He has someone who cares about him looking after him and he doesn’t have to run or be afraid or anything. This is great.

On the third day, Peter waits in his room until Rhodey is up and lets him make the coffee. No need to make him suspicious. He strolls out of the guest room, hair in slight disarray like he’d been sleeping, and yawns. It dawns on him that he has no clue if the yawn was real or fake. Rhodey is giving him a look like he’s wondering the same thing, but doesn’t press for answers. Peter’s gratitude continues to soar.

Peter tries to press along his third straight day of refusing to sleep like he had for the first two. Video games prove too difficult, though, and he thinks he might hate daytime TV. Nevertheless, he pours himself a bowl of sugar and eats it by the spoonful as he stares, enraptured, at a cooking show, where they most assuredly will not be talking about Spider-Man. He stares into a mirror at the prominent bags under his eyes and shakes his head, fighting to avoid collapsing. He can’t see anything like that dream again. He just can’t.

Peter nearly jumps through the ceiling when Rhodey’s phone suddenly rings. _Old people and landlines!_ he thinks. _What the hell!_ But he picks it up, and doesn’t say a word until Rhodey starts talking first, apologizing that he’s going to be home late and telling him to not wait up for him.

“Okay, I won’t,” Peter lies. “And Mr. Rhodes? I just want to say thank you again for all you’re doing for me. I don’t know what I’d be doing without you.” He really doesn’t. His brain drifts back to staring down the barrel of a gun, only Beck isn’t holding it this time. Peter shakes his head to snap himself back to reality.

Peter scurries back into the guest room when he hears Rhodey approaching the door to the apartment a little after one in the morning. He’s carrying his phone, he realizes. Has he been carrying it around all day? Maybe. He turns the light off in his room and listens for Rhodey to go to sleep, then goes to work on his latest triple-digit set of crunches.

He shoots back up on his final crunch, heart skipping a beat when his phone starts ringing. “Holy shit!” he cries softly, rushing over to it to answer without so much as even looking at the screen.

“Hello?” he asks without even thinking.

“Peter!” MJ’s voice comes through, and his knees nearly buckle, he’s so happy to hear her voice. “Peter, are you doing okay?”

Peter finds himself sagging back against the wall, energy and ability to stand completely zapped out of him at the sheer relief of hearing her voice again. “I’m doing better now,” he answers sincerely, sliding down to sit on the floor. “How are you?”

He can hear her give a shaky laugh on the other end. “It’s nuts,” she says. “Everyone is freaking out. Have you been following the news?”

“No,” Peter says. “I really don’t— I don’t think that’s a good idea for me.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” MJ says. “So, where are you? How are you doing?”

Peter sits up straighter at that, his suspicions raised. He feels a twinge of guilt for it, but the last time he was questioned… “I don’t know if I should tell you where I am,” he says.

“What? Why not?”

“You remember the last time someone asked me something, only it turned out I wasn’t talking to who I thought I was, and then you almost… In London…”

MJ inhales sharply on the other end. “Yeah,” she says. “But I’m not Mysterio, Peter. Mysterio’s dead.”

“Right,” Peter says. “Still. Tell me something only the two of us would know.”

He can hear MJ thinking on the other end. “Boh,” she says after a moment.

Peter actually finds himself laughing at that. “Okay,” he says, and his grin is honestly starting to hurt his face. He can hear her laughing on the other end of the line, too.

So he tells her. He tells her everything that happened since he dropped her off, how Happy had called Mr. Stark’s best friend to pick him up and they had very discreetly gone down to DC. How he’s staying holed up in Mr. Rhodes’ apartment now and even though he’s kind of lonely and bored it’s so much better than the alternative. How he would have talked to her sooner but he didn’t want to draw attention to her, didn’t want her to get involved.

He keep his voice low the entire time, conscious of not wanting to wake up Rhodey. He doesn’t tell her about the dream or how he hasn’t gotten any sleep since then. He doesn’t want to worry her.

“So how come you called?” Peter finally asks.

He can practically see her shrug on the other end of the line and duck her head. “I dunno,” she mumbles. “I missed you.”

Then: “I’m gonna come see you.”

“What?” Peter asks. “MJ, what? No, you can’t—“

“Who says?” she interjects. “It’s like, a three-hour trip. If anyone asks then I’m just a bored kid on summer vacation who wanted to go to free museums and whatever. That’s partly true, at least. It’s really boring without you here now.”

Peter finds himself thankful this is just a phone call so she can’t see him blushing. “If you’re sure,” he concedes.

“There’s nothing you’d be able to do to stop me, anyway,” MJ says. “I’ll see you soon.”

Peter lowers his phone from his ear and smiles dopily at it. Then he looks at his watch and realizes it’s already past six in the morning. He’d really just stayed up all night talking to MJ - and it’s the best he’s felt in a few days. Since he was last with her, really.

Stretching, Peter gets up to go put on a new pot of coffee. Rhodey wanders into the kitchen just as he’s pouring himself a second cup. Peter waves at him and grabs a new mug out of the cupboard, passing a fresh cup to him.

“Thanks, Peter,” Rhodey says, and Peter nods at him. Rhodey looks absolutely exhausted, which he figures makes sense - he would have only gotten, what, five hours of sleep last night? That’s not much at all. “How’d you sleep?”

“Maybe better than you,” Peter replies, practically inhaling his own coffee. He quirks a small smile at him that Rhodey returns.

“Yeah, probably,” Rhodey says, but his voice is a little on the duller side. Peter just attributes that to him not having fully woken up yet. He feels awesome, though. He could singlehandedly keep a building from collapsing right now. He remembers MJ will be here in a couple of hours and his smile brightens just a little more. Life isn’t ideal right now, but it’s still pretty great.

“Do you want me to pick you anything up?” Rhodey asks, and Peter has to snap back to reality.

“Sorry, what?”

“On my way home today,” Rhodey says. “You’ve been kind of cooped up in here. Do you want me to bring you anything from the outside world?”

Peter thinks for a second. A day ago, he would have said yes, but MJ’s coming over, so he actually thinks he’s fine. “Nah, I’m good,” he says. “Maybe later, but today I’m good. Thanks though.”

When Rhodey leaves, Peter finds himself passing the time by staring at a clock and vibrating. His phone sits in front of him, screen up but black, as he waits for her to call.

She doesn’t, but there’s suddenly a knock on the entrance to Rhodey’s apartment. Peter jumps up and races for the door, throwing it open without a care. His face explodes into a grin at MJ standing there and he ushers her in quickly, part him wanting to avoid any potential of somebody spotting them and part him just wanting to be with her as soon as possible.

MJ laughs a little as he pulls her inside, and once the door is shut, they hug. “It’s so good to see you,” Peter mumbles into her shoulder, then pulls back and darts in for a quick kiss.

MJ laughs at him again. “Easy, tiger,” she says, giving him a quick peck back before separating and wandering into the apartment. “So this is where you’ve been holed up? Nice place.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. It really is: it’s big and clean and has running water and electricity. “But it’s so much better now that you’re here.”

MJ looks back at him over her shoulder and smiles. Peter beams back. “So, what’d you wanna do?”

They end up putting a horror movie on, something cheesy and stupid they can both laugh and pretend to be scared at, and cuddle on the couch. Peter yawns as the credits start to roll and looks down at MJ, whose own eyes are fluttering shut, her head resting on his shoulder. Peter smiles and leans back against the couch, one arm around her, and shuts his eyes for just a second.

When they open again, MJ is nowhere to be found.

“MJ?” he calls out into the apartment, looking around. He catches sight of the clock; it’s too early for Rhodey to come back home just yet, so it should still be just the two of them. The television screen has faded out from the movie, now just Netflix begging him to pick something else to watch. 

Peter stands up, feeling something off. “MJ?” he calls out again, looking around. There’s nobody in the kitchen. He’s the only one in the living room. She’s probably just in the bathroom, he decides, and makes his way there.

Nope.

Frowning, Peter makes his way back to the living room. “MJ—“ he starts, but then his breath catches in his throat.

There’s a body lying there, cut clean in half, nothing connecting upper from lower. There are cuts all over, pools of blood flowing outwards from both halves. MJ’s eyes stare upwards, unseeing, and Peter suddenly finds himself keeling over and throwing up.

He doesn’t even have time to process things when something like a firecracker goes off in the back of his head, and he realizes someone is approaching the apartment.

Peter takes one quick look at MJ’s dead body before scrambling for his room to get his web shooters. Then he realizes they aren’t lethal, they won’t do anything, and he runs through the apartment, looking for something, anything he can use, because this is suddenly serious and just tying a guy up and leaving a note for the cops isn’t going to cut it.

He finds a locked safe. Peter connects the dots pretty quickly: Rhodey is in the army. Rhodeyknows how to use weapons. He’s _War Machine_ , for chrissake. Peter rips the safe door off its hinges, grabs the biggest gun inside, and then runs into the bathroom, locking the door and curling himself up in the tub, shaking as he points the gun at the door.

And then he waits.

He hears someone enter the apartment and goes stock still. It dawns on him he’s never held a gun before. Why would he have. His grip on it tightens and his index finger itches near the trigger. 

“Peter?” a voice calls out.

Peter stops breathing.

“Peter, where are you,” Beck’s voice rings out, a little bit of a sing-song quality to it, like he’s having fun. “I know you’re in here, buddy. I just wanna talk.”

Peter bites his tongue, resists screaming back out at him. How he’s ruined his life, how he killed Ned, he killed MJ, they were never going to do anything why would he— They’re all just kids, what is wrong with him—

“Oh! Here you are!” Beck exclaims brightly from the other side of the bathroom door. “C’mon Peter, open up.”

“Fuck you!” Peter shouts back, his eyes stinging with tears. “Get the fuck out of here!”

“Peter, I just want to talk,” Beck says. The door knob starts to jiggle as he tries to enter the bathroom.

“Don’t come in here!” Peter screams. “I swear to god I will blow your fucking head off!” He finds a steadier grip on the gun, aims it so it should be pointing right at Beck’s head.

“Peter,” Beck says, his voice so calm and collected it shoots ice through Peter’s entire being. And then the threatening edge appears, “Don’t make me break this door down.”

Peter doesn’t have a response for that, he finds. His finger itches towards the trigger and nearly squeezes it as the door shakes under the first blow. He gasps and tries to centre himself, uncurling his body a little to get in a better shooting position. The door shakes again and again until finally, it swings open.

Peter squeezes the trigger.

Nothing happens.

Peter looks down at the gun in shock, up at Beck standing over him with a concerned expression on his face. No, that can’t be right. Maybe it jammed. Why would he be concerned? Peter lowers the gun but squeezes again experimentally. Nothing. He looks back up and sees—

“Peter,” Rhodey says from his side, having kneeled down beside him just outside of the bathtub. “Peter, please give me the gun.”

Peter looks between the empty space where Beck was standing, the gun in his hands, Rhodey kneeling beside him. Empty space, gun, Rhodey. Empty space, gun, Rhodey. 

Then he drops the gun in the tub, crying out a pained howl as it dawns on him what he’d just tried to do: he was going to blow Rhodey’s head off.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Rhodey is saying, reaching over the tub’s walls to pull Peter into an embrace. Peter scrambles for a hold in Rhodey’s shirt, his fingers sticking as he grabs tight and doesn’t let go, and starts full on sobbing. His chest is heaving and he’s hysterical, completely unable to form words, and he pulls Rhodey tighter to him as he feels gentle circles being rubbed into his back and he wails, staining Rhodey’s shirt with tears until he almost starts choking on his own gasps.

“Peter, it’s okay,” Rhodey hums. This has to be uncomfortable for him but he isn’t moving. He continues to rub Peter’s back and further leans into the tight embrace. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I— I— I— I—“ Peter can’t get any words out, the same syllable caught in his throat. He burps from all the air he’s sucking in. “I tried to— to— I tried to shoot— I—“

“But you didn’t,” Rhodey says. “I wouldn’t have let you. The gun wasn’t loaded. I knew that. Nothing was ever going to happen.”

“But MJ—“ Peter starts. Oh god, his eyes hurt so much. Between all the crying and lack of sleep and he feels physical pain emanating from them. He’s never felt so raw. He wishes he was trapped under rubble again, it was so much better than this.

“Who?” Rhodey asks.

“My— My— My girl— girl— My girlfriend—“

“Peter,” Rhodey says, softly, finally finding enough give to pull back and look him properly in the eyes, “there’s nobody else here. It’s just us two.” He gives him another, reexamining look. “When’s the last time you slept?”

And he’s too tired and shaken up now to keep up any facade. He hiccups. “Since we talked about my dream…” he finally gets out, quiet, staring down at Rhodey’s chest rather than at his face. He can’t look at his face right now. He’d tried to kill him. Oh god, he’d really pointed a gun at Rhodey’s head and pulled the trigger. 

“Peter,” Rhodey says again, and Peter reluctantly looks up. “You’ve been awake for over ninety hours.”

Peter just stares back, unseeing. “It’s better than sleeping,” he says, voice finally under control, but flat and devoid of all emotions. He can feel himself shutting down. “If I’m awake then I can’t dream. It’s worth it.” He feels awful, but it’s worth it.

“Hallucinations start after about three days without sleep,” Rhodey says.

Peter’s stomach drops.

He scrambles upright, taking Rhodey by surprise as he stumbles back slightly, then rushes back to the living room. There’s no body. There’s no blood. He finds his phone and presses the home button. Nothing. It’s dead.

He turns around when he hears Rhodey enter the room behind him. “I thought she called me,” he says, weakly holding his phone up by way of explanation. “She said she was going to come over. We hanged out and we watched a movie and…” His voice drifts off as he becomes aware of the small bit of puke in the room, from when he’d thrown up earlier.

Rhodey looks down at it, too. “I’m going to clean this up,” he says. “Peter, I need you to go to bed. Now. Get some sleep. No arguing.”

Peter bites on his lower lip and nods weakly. He wants to argue but he’s just so damn tired, and he really doesn’t have an avenue to do so. Rhodey is right and they both know it.

“Yeah,” he rasps out, suddenly aware of how much his throat hurts, too. How much everything hurts. “Okay. I’m— I’m so sorry, Mr. Rhodes.”

“I know,” Rhodey says. “It’s okay.”

Peter shuffles off weakly to his guest room. He turns off the light and crawls under the covers, too exhausted to even be able to feel the panic he knows is creeping around in the back of his mind.

* * *

Peter wakes up.

He doesn’t dream, and a day and a half later, he wakes up. 

He feels… not fine, he realizes, but better. His head feels a lot clearer. His reflexes are back. He had nothing to be afraid of going to sleep, that much was proven, and now that his overtired brain and imbalanced hormones have had a chance to reset, he has nothing to fear from the waking world.

He huffs a laugh to himself, wishing that were true. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he can’t shake the feeling that it’s not.

He’d had a healthy amount of paranoia before; the kind that made sense to have while walking around with two different identities. Since they’ve both been exposed it’s been kicked into overdrive, and he doesn’t know if that’s ever going to right itself, or if he’s just going to go through life looking over his shoulder at every turn now, distancing himself from the ones he loves so another Beck can’t come in to try to murder them for his stupid mistakes.

Peter gets up.

He stretches, reintroducing his limbs to controlled movement. It’s early afternoon and he’s hungry, he realizes. Rhodey isn’t there, but there’s a note left for Peter on the fridge: he’s slept through the entire previous day, take whatever he wants, he’ll be back in the evening, and they are going to have a talk.

Peter hangs his head at the note. Of course they are. You don’t just point a gun at the person housing you because you’re slowly (quickly?) losing it and not talk about it after.

He eyes the coffee pot and then goes for a sugar-free cereal and skim milk. Nothing that’s going to get him all hyped up. Not again.

Peter kind of just sits there staring into space as he eats his breakfast. He doesn’t think. He just wants his brain to shut up for once, so he doesn’t think. What is he even going to say to Rhodey? _The truth, I guess, but it’ll just make me sound crazy._

_Maybe I am crazy now._

He stills at the thought, spoon hovering halfway between the bowl and his mouth. Then he raises it all the way up to his mouth and resumes eating.

Peter’s day is his most uneventful one yet since the video was released. He leaves his phone back in his room, still uncharged, still afraid to even so much as think about turning it back on. Yeah, he’s bunking with War Machine now, but he doesn’t want to leave any possible loose threads for someone to tug on. 

He washes his dishes and waits for Rhodey to come back.

When Rhodey does return home he finds Peter on the couch, eyes half-lidded, staring at a television screen that’s not even on. “Hey,” he says, and Peter jerks up violently at that. “I brought shawarma.”

Peter gets up, and when he turns around Rhodey can see there are still bags under his eyes, but he looks better. More rested. “Oh, hey,” he says, “thanks.”

He sounds a lot better too, voice a little raw and strained but a vast improvement from the sobbing wreck he’d held in his arms two days ago.

Peter pads over to join him in the kitchen. He takes his wrap with a grateful nod and starts chewing at it. He finds he’s both absolutely starving and not at all. The food is good, but it feels weird to indulge after, well, everything.

“So,” Rhodey says, “I have to know where the other night came from.”

About a quarter of the way through his wrap, Peter sets it down and hangs his head. “You said it yourself. I wasn’t sleeping. I saw things that weren’t really there and it messed me up.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “No, I get that. But you were going through something very specific. I need to know what happened there.”

Peter shrugs.

“Peter,” Rhodey says, and it’s such a suddenly authoritative tone of voice he snaps his head up. They make eye contact. Rhodey is sincere, but he isn’t just going to let him off the hook, Peter realizes.

“Can I ask you something first?” Peter asks in a small voice. He doesn’t even think it’s going to help. It’s not going to do anything. But he feels this compulsion, now, even though it clearly didn’t work the last time.

But this time he’s not hallucinating.

He thinks.

“Sure,” Rhodey says.

“Tell me something only the two of us would know,” Peter says, and waits.

Rhodey levels him with a hard gaze. They’ve only really had two interactions prior to all of this, only one in particularly close quarters. “When Pepper asked FRIDAY for a read on Tony’s life signs,” he says. The armour is rising out of the ground. “And she told him he could finally rest.” It’s coming after him. “And the first person you looked at was me.”

“Okay,” Peter says, voice quiet, and stares down at his hands.

Then: “I wasn’t crazy before, but I think I might be now.”

“What do you mean?” Rhodey asks him.

Peter can feel the tears building up in his eyes again already. This again. “I don’t want to be a paranoid person,” he says, like he has a choice. “But I don’t know if I can trust anyone anymore. And I mean that for the rest of my life. I don’t know how I can tell what’s real and what’s not. I mean, I had a building dropped on me, but I got out of it. But I’ve never had all of my senses so violently assaulted— I was led to an abandoned warehouse and even though I knew, like, throwing my girlfriend off of a tall building wasn’t real, I still acted like it was and swan dived right into the ground at close distance.

“And then there was the stuff I thought was real: like that Mysterio actually was Nick Fury, so I told him what he wanted to know, and it put my friends in danger. You saw the video he released? Imagine that level of manipulation but directed in full force at you and only you.

“And I know he’s dead now. I know that. But still I’m dreaming about him carrying out his plan. So I avoid sleep, and then I hallucinate that he’s carrying out his plan. I— The other night, I thought you were him. I guess you were trying to check on me, but I thought he was trying to kill me after killing my girlfriend who I thought had come to visit me. It’s like my brain was setting up the exact circumstances he wanted for me all on its own. He doesn’t even have to be here to own me.

“So if I can’t escape him in sleep and if I can’t escape him when I’m awake… What do I do?”

At least his crying is more controlled than the hysterics he’d been in the last time, Peter thinks. At least he’s almost maintaining a shred of dignity this time.

“Are you in therapy?” Rhodey asks him. Peter looks up sharply, like he’d forgotten he was even there at all. 

“What? No.”

Rhodey nods at him. “You start there. It’s a good starting point. You had a building dropped on you? Forget all of the other stuff for a moment, that’s messed up on its own. You need someone to talk to.”

_It’s nice to have someone to talk to about all this superhero stuff. Fuck._

“But everything else you went through? That’s something else entirely. I haven’t heard of anyone else going through something like that, and I’ve been around the block a few times and know people who’ve been around it a few times more. Wanda Maximoff did something like that once, I think, but not to that extent. You need to talk to a professional.”

Peter snorts. “Whole world thinks I’m a murderous criminal now,” he says. “How am I supposed to talk to anybody?”

“First off, the entire world does not think you’re a criminal,” Rhodey says. “There’s a very intense debate going on about that right now. We’re trying to steer it in the right direction. You’ve got a ton of respected character witnesses in your corner.”

“Really?” Peter asks, looking back up at that and almost feeling something like hope again. 

“Really,” Rhodey says. “I’d still stay away from the reports, and definitely stay away from social media and the comments sections, but that’s a good rule to live by normally anyway. But your life is far from over.

“And second, do you remember Sam Wilson?”

“Falcon?” Peter asks. “Or New Cap? I don’t know what I’m supposed to call him now.”

“You’ll probably be calling him Sam,” Rhodey says. “You know he’s trained in therapy, right? Not quite the kind you’d be getting otherwise - he worked with veterans coming home from war - but you’re the youngest Avenger thrown into war-like situations you never should have had to see. He can relate to some of what you’ve been through. And he’ll be in your corner no matter what. I want you to start by talking to him. He’s waiting and ready.”

It’s all Peter can really do to just stare at Rhodey in disbelief. Then, finally, “I just thought he thought I was annoying.”

Rhodey laughs at that. “Yeah, probably,” he says. “From what I’ve gathered, you’re really talkative when you fight, and you weren’t exactly on the same side when you first met. But you know he isn’t going to turn you away for that. He’ll actually want you to talk.”

“Wow,” Peter says. He looks back down at his abandoned shawarma wrap and takes another few bites from it, giving him an excuse to avoid saying anything again for a bit. “So, you’ll get us in touch? He’ll come here? How is that going to work?”

“He’ll probably come here at first due to current circumstances,” Rhodey says. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I need you to not forget that you’re always going to have people in your corner. And everyone will understand if you feel like you always have to be looking over your shoulder - and hopefully we’ll be able to reach the point you’re able to move on from that. That’s the goal. It might take a while, but we’ll get there.”

Peter thinks back on his final confrontation with Beck. He had won. He’d had to do it kind of on his own, and maybe that was the start of the fight rather than the end of it, but he’d won that battle and he has resources for the future ones.

“Mr. Rhodes, I—“ Peter starts, but he gets cut off.

“Rhodey.”

Peter blinks at him in surprise. It feels awkward, this is Mr. Stark’s best friend and that’s what he called him, not Peter, not this sixteen-year-old kid… “Rhodey,” he says, “thank you.”

* * *

Peter goes to bed, but he’s not quite tired yet. That makes sense, though; he still has to fix his sleep schedule. It’s not like he’d gotten up at a normal time after everything. Not on Day One.

It feels right to capitalize it. Day One. He won’t meet with Sam for a couple of days yet, but this was Day One. He’d said, out loud, what was messing him up. First time doing that. First day en route to getting his life back on track. He’s ready.

He’s lying flat on his stomach, legs kicked up above him, chin resting on his folded hands. He watches with some bemusement as a spider makes itself known in the room, emerging from the corner of the ceiling, dangling down by its own webbing like it’s surveilling things.

Like it’s crawling out of an eye socket, his mind flashes back, and Peter frowns. That wasn’t real, though. Obviously.

He looks down and sees a second spider scurrying about on the floor.

_Weird,_ Peter thinks. He’s been here a week and hasn’t seen any bugs in the apartment before. It’s been kept clean. Nobody’s even been eating in this room, so it’s not like there’s any kind of crumbs in here for anyone. His suspicions are up.

But then again, they’re just a couple of normal spiders, right? Nothing to it. 

The spider on the floor makes its way out, crawling out from the dark room under the door where a bit of light from the hallway is seeping through. Peter watches it, then feels a compulsion to follow it out. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from. Boredom, probably.

He quietly opens the door, mindful of the fact Rhodey is almost certainly asleep, and watches as the spider makes its way out of the apartment and into the main hallway, leaving Peter with a dilemma: should he keep going?

Peter weighs his options. On the one hand, it’s definitely safer in here. He can go back to bed and get some sleep - some real, normal sleep - and start figuring out what he’s going to do for the long-term tomorrow. He’ll figure out how he’s going to talk to Aunt May and MJ and Ned again, brush aside the paranoia and recognize that they’re there for him so he has to be there for them. He’ll have a really, really productive day, even if he doesn’t step outside again just yet.

On the other hand, he’s bored, and it’s late, and it’s not like he wouldn’t be able to come back inside easily on his own. If he steps outside for what, like, ten minutes? There can’t be any harm in that. And besides, he has to remember that nobody is going to see or recognize him: there’s really nothing all that distinctive about him, and all the normal people will be in bed.

Not that he’s not normal, too, but his circumstances sure aren’t.

Peter unlocks the door and follows the spider out. He heads down the stairwell, realizing after a flight that he’s still barefoot, but shrugs it off - he’s going to be quick and, well, he’s still him. He’ll survive without shoes.

The humidity absolutely nails him when he steps outside for the first time in a week. He looks around and sees street lights, the night sky above, trees bright green with their leaves out in full force, and finds himself weighing his options again: he could go back inside right now (smart) or he could go on a little walk (nice).

There’s nobody around. The streets are completely deserted. He opts for the walk.

A couple of steps in, he thinks he can see the spider scurrying just ahead of him. It’s possible, but it’s also more likely he’s just imagining something. And something as innocuous as a spider? Nothing to worry about.

As he approaches the end of the block, though, he sees more than one spider. There are several now, congregating ahead of him, more and more and more joining their ranks.

Peter stops in his tracks, much more prepared to tackle something so clearly out of the norm head on. He’s not sleep deprived, so it’s not a hallucination. So either there really are hundreds of spiders up ahead of him for no reason, or he did fall asleep and now he’s just dreaming.

He doesn’t wake up, but he’s not going to play into this, not while he has a say in things. So Peter turns right back around to make his way back to Rhodey’s building. Dream him or not: he’s going to sleep now, for real this time.

Only when he turns around he doesn’t see Rhodey’s building anywhere, just an expansive length of sidewalk with the same two buildings lining it as far as his eye can see.

Definitely a dream, then, Peter thinks. But just in case, he starts walking back down the way he came anyway; it couldn’t hurt.

The spiders from before end up changing course and following him. They swarm at his feet, urging him forward. It’s actually starting to annoy him, because by now he’s fed up enough with the nonsense his brain is putting him through this particular time that he just wants to petulantly sit down until he wakes up, but he can still feel the spiders swarming at him and it’s a gross sensation. He doesn’t want to know what his brain will have in mind if he sits down and lets them crawl over his entire being. He can just feel that they’ll go down his throat and everything - and even though this is obviously all fake, he can still do without that ever happening on any plane of existence.

So Peter continues walking down the endless expanse of road. He’ll wake up soon enough, and he can feel good that he recognized this for the bullshit that it was.

The road becomes dirtier the more he presses forward. He can feel his bare feet picking up soot as he walks along. A broken bottle takes him by surprise; he narrowly avoids stepping right on one of its jagged pieces only to come down on some smaller shards of glass. He hisses as he can feel one or two nick his sole. He keeps that foot on the ground, unscathed one hovering in the air, looking for a spot to put it down and finding very little to work with.

The buildings are gone, he suddenly realizes. The grass and trees are nowhere to be found. It’s just road littered with debris, and he’s standing out there in pyjama pants, an over-sized t-shirt, and nothing else.

“Any time I could wake up would be great now,” he mutters to himself, finding a spot to put his other foot down, raising his injured one, and taking the glass shards out of it.

Peter turns around and sees that the way he’d just came is free from debris, but it’s also where all of the spiders seem to have congregated, as well. He turns to go back that way, frowning at the fog that seems to have settled in at ground level. He keeps his eyes strictly on the road, then, just in case any more debris shows up. Dream or not, he’s still feeling pain.

A thought crosses Peter’s mind as he makes his way back to relative safety: _Will I remember any of this when I wake up?_

Another: _When I slept for thirty-six hours straight, did I dream then too, and just not remember any of that?_

Another: _Am I going to think it’s safe to go to sleep, because when I’m awake, I don’t remember what it’s like when I’m asleep?_

Something is horribly off, but there’s nothing going off in his head telling him that’s the case, so it can’t be real. That gives him a small boost of confidence as he continues moving forward, pushed by something internally telling him he has to keep moving when really, he doesn’t. 

Peter ends up at where all of the spiders seem to have congregated. He stares down impassively at the hoard, seeing nothing more than a writhing black mass of endless legs. It’s gross, yeah, but—

There’s a flash of white, he realizes. He squats down to get a closer look and the spiders part at at his movement.

A skull. Oh, okay. He’s been through this before. He snorts as he stands back up. If this is the worst his mind has to offer—

But there’s something funny about the clothes he can see the skeleton is wearing. He recognizes them from somewhere, he realizes. Especially the two holes in the jacket just about where the heart would have been, the blood stains faintly touching it. Peter reaches down to lift it up and finds it much worse on the very, very specific shirt he knows he’s seen somewhere before.

Skin starts to form on the skull again, slowly and in tatters, and Peter yelps as he recognizes his uncle. Only this time instead of standing over him, terrified and concerned and hating himself and trying to console him as he died literally in his arms, he was standing over him with a morbid curiosity, oh, isn’t this interesting to look at.

He scrambles backwards on all fours, getting away from the now-decomposing body. He looks behind him and sees the fog has completely taken over, reducing any and all visibility, and with only his five senses online he doesn’t trust himself to go further into it.

“This isn’t real,” Peter exhales, getting his breathing back under control. He’s in a dream, it’s not like he needs to breathe, right? But still he calms himself back down, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head like he’s getting rid of the cobwebs. He opens his eyes and still sees the body before him. “This isn’t real.”

“Maybe not,” Beck’s voice answers him, “but your feelings are, aren’t they?”

Peter leaps back to his feet, whirling around and looking for him. He finds himself and the body of his dead uncle encased by a light green fog and smoke, any other possible avenue completely cut off. Peter looks nervously back at the corpse and, ignoring the voice that feels like it’s coming from god himself - all around him, omnipresent - reminds himself, again, “This isn’t real.”

But he can feel his heart thudding in his own chest now, and swears he can hear it coming from Uncle Ben’s corpse.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Beck says, dismissive. “He’s already dead. Nothing you can change there, right? Not like with the living. Their futures are always open to interpretation.”

Peter’s breath hitches as he looks back at the body and finds its stature has changed. The clothes are different, flow-y and summery, no blood but plenty of dirt. One of his masks fits snugly on the head, now, a noose made of his own webbing tightened around its neck, head lolled at an unnatural angle. He can see long, brown hair poking out from underneath.

“What the hell is this,” he says, turning away from it and out to a point in the fog where he thinks Beck’s voice is coming from. “You never had a problem with my aunt. Why does she have to be a part of this?”

_Don’t start talking to him like he’s here,_ Peter snaps at himself internally. _He isn’t. You know he isn’t. This is all you, you’re freaked out about putting your friends and family in danger, and you are going to address this in therapy. Stop talking and just wake up._

He doesn’t get an answer, which he isn’t quite sure relieves or terrifies him. The fog and smoke start to clear, though. Behind him, there’s no body. No spiders. No broken glass or dirty road. He’s right back where he started, in front of Rhodey’s building on a deserted, quiet, peaceful street, green and humid with streetlights lighting the way.

“Okaaay,” Peter says to himself, looking around.

He doesn’t have a key or a fob to get back in, but he does know the balcony doors weren’t locked, so he climbs his way back up to Rhodey’s level and lets himself in through there. He brushes his feet off before he steps back inside, then quietly makes his way to the bathroom where he can at least wash them off properly.

There are two small cuts on the bottom of his foot from where he’d stepped on the broken bottle earlier, he sees on closer inspection. He pokes at them. It stings, and a little bit of blood wells up. Peter frowns as he twists to bring his foot closer; did he actually step on some glass when he was out and about or is he still dreaming?

_Just make it through this night,_ he thinks to himself as he has water trickle into the bath so his feet will at least feel less gross. _You’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll feel refreshed and not crazy and you’ll actually be able to tackle your problems. That’s the number one thing. Keep yourself feeling good and you’ll be able to face anything._

He steps back out on the soft bath mat, amazed at how good it feels against his freshly cleaned feet. He could pass out right there, he thinks, but he presses on back to the guest room, good and properly tired finally, and he’s out as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Soft light streams in and wakes him up naturally. Peter hums, happily, as he turns over and buries his face back into the pillow. He’s just going to lie there for another five minutes, because it’s summer and nobody can tell him to get up early and he’s so cozy and he remembers his dream from the night before and just wants a few extra minutes of being comfortable without getting freaked out all over again.

Lying in bed without his brain going off on him. What a concept.

But he does have to get up eventually, if only because he’s restless and out of everything in his dream, he remembers telling himself he’s going to make progress. It’s now Day Two, and he’s not going to step outside into the daylight or watch the news or anything, but maybe it’s safe to give Aunt May a call.

Why hadn’t he been doing that before? It’s not like they could track him from Rhodey’s phone, right?

Peter frowns to himself. Who’s _they_?

He exits his room to see that it’s about mid-morning, so Rhodey is already gone. _He let me sleep in,_ Peter thinks to himself, smiling.

_He probably let you sleep in because the last time you didn’t sleep you tried to kill him._

_Hey. Stop it. Enough of that._

Peter shakes his head, like that’s going to dispel the negative thoughts from creeping in. He’s going to work on it, he knows. Happy telling him that even Mr. Stark had always second-guessed himself had been a revelation, and Peter wonders if he had moments like this, too. He should ask Rhodey about it, he thinks.

But first: he’s gotta find Rhodey’s landline, a task that proves to be surprisingly difficult since it’s not in its cradle. It’s not on any table or counter he can see, it’s not under any furniture, it’s not in the couch cushions or in the fridge (why is he checking the fridge?). It’s only when he hops up on the kitchen countertop to look in the highest cabinets that he finds it, nestled away back there.

_Weird,_ Peter thinks, but doesn’t question it.

He starts questioning something else entirely: _But he’s military, they would listen in on his calls right? He signed the Accords, does that give them permission to just listen to everything he would have to say? Does he only use this phone as a decoy? Does he have something private somewhere else? Should I wait?_

But, breaking through his thoughts comes one screaming question: _Who the fuck are_ ** _they_** _??_

Peter shakes his head again, violently this time. Screw it. He wants to talk to his aunt and he needs to stop thinking the world is out to get him (despite some actually real evidence to the contrary). He is going to call her.

“Hello?” Aunt May’s voice asks, and Peter could fall over in relief.

“Aunt May,” he says. “Hi.”

“Peter!” she exclaims, softly but it’s like he can feel the warmth in her voice embracing him. He sags into it, the atmosphere tinged with love all of a sudden. It smells like raspberries. “Oh my god, it’s so good to hear from you.”

“It’s so good to hear from you too,” Peter says, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Is everything okay?” Aunt May asks. “You sound like you’re okay.”

“It’s going to be,” Peter says, and once he actually says the words out loud he finds he really, truly means them. “I’m safe, and I’m happy, and I missed you so much. But I have people helping me, and I really think everything’s going to turn out alright. I love you. How are things on your end?”

“Oh, god,” Aunt May says. Peter can almost see her running her hand through her hair. “It’s a good thing you aren’t here. I’ve been staying with Happy the past week, the press is relentless. I can barely step foot outside without being hounded by someone for a quote.”

Peter feels guilt stab at him, a cool presence in his gut diminishing some of the warmth he’d been feeling otherwise. “I’m so sorry to do that to you.”

“Don’t be,” Aunt May says immediately. “Absolutely none of this is your fault, it’s theirs. Who just broadcasts someone’s private information like that, anyway? You’re sixteen! I should tell you, I talked to Pepper, we’re exploring legal options together. The lawyers were warning me something like this could drag on forever but we’ll have Stark Industries at our backs, we won’t run out of resources and have to give up. Someone’s going to pay for this.”

Peter snickers into the phone, grin blooming across his face. “Thanks, Aunt May. You’re the best.”

“Absolutely,” she agrees. Her voice takes on a softer tone. “I love you, Peter. You amaze me every day and I couldn’t be prouder to be your aunt. I’ll be able to give you a real hug soon, I promise.”

Peter closes his eyes, resting his head on the back of the wall. “I can’t wait,” he says.

They exchange their goodbyes and hang up. Peter rests the phone in his lap, eyes still shut, smile still resting on his face. This past week was rough. This summer has been rough. But he’s going to get through it, maybe even stronger than he was before. He’s going to savour this moment, file it away for when things inevitably take a downturn, remind himself that there’s still a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Aw, that was really touching. Do you think she means any of it in the real world?”

Peter’s eyes snap open. That cold feeling that had briefly stabbed his gut has spread over his body. He stands up, landline suddenly nowhere to be found, back pressed tight against the wall. He checks his wrists - no web shooters. Still no shoes, even. He looks left and right, but there’s nothing there.

Literally nothing. He takes a step back as the wall behind him suddenly disappears, finding himself in an empty, black void. Panic seizes his heart as he looks down and realizes he has nothing to stand on. One step could send him plummeting into nothingness.

For a second, he can’t breathe.

Peter’s head shoots back up and he cranes his neck, looking all around him for something, anything. There’s nothing. He’s precariously hanging by a thread - maybe. He recalls falling through spiders’ webs before, being trapped in a globe, in a graveyard. Nothing. This is pure nothingness.

Peter’s eyes snap open and he finds himself staring up at the ceiling in the guest room, sheets tangled at his feet. He stares, unblinkingly, for a moment before reaching for his watch. Seven in the morning. He falls back over, hair splaying out underneath him and on his pillow.

“Oh, god,” he moans, reaching up to rub at his entire face. He does not feel even remotely rested. “What a bullshit night.”

He stands up, yawns, and stretches before padding his way out into the kitchen. He frowns as he feels his foot twinge a little, the one he had stepped on the glass with. But Rhodey’s there, and he’s fixing himself breakfast, so Peter lets himself relax as he joins him in the kitchen.

“Hey,” Rhodey greets him, “rough night?”

“Weird dreams,” Peter frowns, reaching for a mug and pouring himself some coffee. At Rhodey’s look, he immediately raises his hands in defence. “No, no, I’m a responsible coffee drinker now. I swear it. Just a normal amount. See? One cup. I’m not even filling it up the entire way.” He puts on his winningest smile.

Rhodey snorts and shakes his head. “Sure,” he says. “Weird dreams? Not bad, just weird?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, turning around to lean back against the counter. “Nothing to scare me off from sleep ever again, they were just. Weird. You know?”

“Not really, but I’ll take your word for it. Any plans for today?”

The question catches Peter off guard. He thinks for a second. The landline is in its cradle in the living room, he can see it right there. He eyes it thoughtfully, and if he still had any doubts about whoever _they_ are then Rhodey’s right here for him to ask, but… 

“Yoga,” Peter finally says.

Rhodey raises his eyebrows. “Yoga?”

“Oh yeah,” Peter says. “Relaxing. Gotta stay flexible. Maybe I’ll take up meditation, too. Start building up some habits before I start talking to Sam. Gonna keep everything on a perfect, even keel. When do you think I might get to see him, anyway?”

“I’ll see him later today, so I’ll be able to share the good news,” Rhodey says. “I’d imagine first moment he’s free. You don’t have anything on your schedule, do you?”

Peter laughs at that. “Oh yeah. Whole lotta nothing. Whenever he’s good, I’m good.”

When Rhodey leaves and Peter has the place to himself again, he takes another look at the landline. Then he picks it up, cradle and all, and gently moves it to the floor, under the couch. He doesn’t want to even think about it being there, doesn’t want to tempt himself. He knows the empty void wasn’t real, but still - it’s maybe just not the right time, his mind suggests. There’ll be time later. Better to not rush into things.

Realizing he has no idea how to do yoga, Peter finds a yoga documentary on Netflix to watch and hopes he’ll be able to pick up something from it. If anything, it helps accomplish his original goal: to relax. He’s still a little tired, but it’s fine. He’ll get through this day, get a good night’s sleep, get through the next day, and get everything back on track.

Peter finds himself suddenly on the ceiling when the phone rings. He’s had horrible luck with phones lately, and he really doesn’t want to answer, so he stays up where he is and holds his breath. The ringing stops, and he exhales.

When the ringing starts again, Peter sighs and jumps down, digging under the couch to get the phone back. He answers and doesn’t say a word.

“Hey,” Rhodey’s voice comes through the speaker, and Peter rests his head on the floor in relief. “Turns out Sam is available later today, in like an hour and a half. How would you feel about that?”

“That would be amazing,” Peter exhales into his end of the line.

“Uh. You okay there, buddy? You sound like you’re tired.”

Peter blinks, realizes he’s completely stretched out on the floor, and sits back up. “Yeah, I’m good, I promise. The phone just fell on the floor is all. And I think, uh, I think talking to Sam sooner rather than later will help.”

“Alright,” Rhodey says from the other end. Peter cocks his head, his voice sounds a little off. “Just buzz him in when he gets there, okay? I’ll be late again tonight. Still fighting for you, kid.”

Peter does smile a little at that. He hopes the action is conveyed in his voice as he answers, “Will do. Thanks again. I’m going to owe you so much when this is all over.”

“Don’t even mention it,” Rhodey says, and hangs up.

Peter puts the landline back on the side table he’d taken it from and goes back to his documentary. His mind isn’t on it anymore, though; he keeps sneaking glances at the phone. If Rhodey is willing to call him - twice! He’s done it twice now - through this number then it has to be secure. _They_ can’t listen in. Maybe he should—

Suddenly Sam is asking to be let in, and Peter is falling off the couch at the surprise source of noise. He buzzes him in, turns off the TV, goes to unlock the front door and waits by it.

Peter looks back at the empty expanse of apartment. He swears the front hallway didn’t seem this long before, but then again, it’s not like he’s been in this part of it all that much: he hasn’t had any use for the front door since first arriving. He’s avoided it, really.

Oh, wow. This is really something new. He’s going to let someone else in. He’s going to talk to someone else about all of this, properly, for the first time. Someone is going to listen to the madness he thought he was going through, is still going through with these dreams and hallucinations that have him too freaked out to live his life (and he wonders what it would be like if his identity hadn’t been outed, if his brain would still be pulling this shit on him or if he’d be able to stuff it all back down in a box like when Liz’s dad had tried to kill him), and help him figure out a way to get past it.

Day Two. Huge step forward.

Peter finds himself hyperventilating. He orders himself to stop it, and gets things back under control as there’s a knock on the door.

“It’s open!” he calls, stepping back into the hallway to allow for a little bit of extra room.

“Thanks, kid,” a voice responds as the door opens, and all Peter can do is gape. Then he finds himself rushing forward, crushing Tony Stark in a hug just as he’s closing the door behind him, accidentally slamming his back into the wall with a little too much force and knocking the wind out of him a little.

Tony coughs, and Peter immediately backs up. “I’m so sorry Mr. Stark, it’s just so good to see you, I can’t believe—“

Something’s wrong. Something’s really wrong this time. Everything inside him is screaming that this is a dangerous situation.

 _I don’t care,_ he tells himself, and it’s true. He really doesn’t.

“Don’t mention it,” Tony wheezes, doubling over for a second. But he’s quick to stand back up, offering Peter a sly grin. He responds with a huge one of his own, so wide that he feels like it’s going to split his face. This is amazing. This is amazing. “How’d you like the glasses?”

“Oh man,” Peter says, running a hand through his hair and looking to the side bashfully. “They’s really cool, but they’re also a lot. It’s like when you gave me a suit for the first time and it had an instant kill mode. I almost killed a classmate! But I didn’t. So other than that they’re great, thank you.”

“Of course they’re great, I made them,” Tony says, and Peter beams at him. 

_nope nope nope nope nope nope nope_

_shut up_

“So did you put Rhodey up to this?” Peter asks, if only to actually get the little voice inside him to be quiet, to stop ruining the moment. “Or, like, did you have to fake your death for some new mission? Did they put you up to it? Or are you escaping from them?”

“One question at a time, kid,” Tony says, strutting into the apartment like he owns the place. How close is he with Rhodey, anyway? Probably really close. He probably doesn’t literally own the place but Peter bets he’s stayed here before. Probably even in the same guest room he’s occupying right now. “But yeah, it’s been busy. Saw that you were in trouble, though, and this was the earliest I could get back. If we could just keep this little moment to ourselves, that’d be great.”

Peter nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah, of course. It just— You have no idea how much it means to see you again—“

Tony flashes him a small, sincere grin. “I think I do,” he says. “But it’s good to see you, too.”

_this isn’t right you know this isn’t right you_ **_know_ **

_Yeah. I know it’s another dream. But if it’s going to give me the chance to talk to Mr. Stark again, I’m going to take it. Even if it isn’t real._

“So, anything I can help you with?”

Peter’s head snaps back up to see Tony looking at him expectantly. He runs a hand through his hair, again. It looks good, right? “Ah,” he says, “clearing my name?”

Tony gives him a soft laugh at that, but it’s a sad one. “If it were that simple I’d do it, you know I would,” he says.

Peter hangs his head slightly. “Yeah, I know. I just— I don’t know, I think even just spending an hour or two with you would help me a lot. Just that on its own.”

“Really?” Tony shoots him a surprised look. “You might be the first person to ever say that to me.”

It’s Peter’s turn to give him a sad smile in response. “It’s just, you’ve helped me so much. In life, with school, with the suits and just by— just by being someone who was there. Not that I didn’t have that before, but my uncle died and I really lost someone with him and you finding me a little later? And believing in me? I really needed that—“ Oh, god, he’s crying again. It just never stops, he thinks.

“Ah,” Tony says, rubbing at the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. “Hey.” He looks from side to side, like he has no idea how to deal with this, and then just beckons Peter to him. “C’mere,” he says, actually going to Peter himself, arms outstretched. “It’s gonna be okay. C’mere.”

Peter falls into Tony’s arms, trying and, for once, succeeding and getting his emotions back under control. He feels Tony’s hand pat his back awkwardly. “There, there, it’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

Peter stiffens. He immediately stops crying.

That was not Tony’s voice.

Peter flings himself backwards, using Beck’s body to surprise him and get out of his hold. He stands far back, immediately shifting into a fighting stance as he faces him. Fuck. Still no web shooters. Still no shoes. Why didn’t he get dressed at any point in this nightmare?

Beck just smiles, a harmless smile, and spreads his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not here to fight you, Peter. I just want to talk.”

Peter eyes him, daring him to make a move. “Why the hell would I believe anything you have to say?”

Beck takes a step forward. “I’ve been with you all this time,” he says. “I don’t think you really have a choice anymore.”

Peter takes a step back. He stops when his foot hits something. Looking over his shoulder, he sees his back is almost up against a bar; looking forward again, he can see they’re back in the bar in Prague where Peter first insisted Beck take the EDITH glasses. This time, though, it’s empty: just the two of them.

“What’s this supposed to do?” Peter asks, throwing his arm out at the bar, glaring at Beck. 

Beck doesn’t even heed his aggressive body language, instead choosing a stool to sit at. “I thought a familiar place might help you,” he says. “The last time we were here, you looked at me with such adoration, like we were close friends. And we were then, weren’t we? Let’s see if we can’t get back to that.”

“Are you insane?” Peter sputters, lashing out and trying to kick the stool out from under Beck. He simply shifts it to the side, out of Peter’s reach. 

“Unstable,” Beck says, pulling up the stool beside him and patting it, like he wants Peter to sit there. “Insane is where you’re headed though, isn’t it? That’s okay. We still have the makings of a great team.”

Peter glares at the stool. “I’m not sitting next to you,” he snaps. “And a great team? What the hell are you talking about? You think nothing of people, to you they’re only a means to an end, literal _playthings_ ,” he spits out the last word, thinking of his time in a warehouse in Berlin. 

“Oh,” Beck says, and there’s an honest to god hint of regret in his tone. Peter stares at him incredulously. “Did I upset you when I did that? I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not!”

Beck clicks his tongue, shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t personal, though. It really wasn’t. I needed information and you gave it to me. I never wanted to have to kill you. I really do mean that. Come on, sit.”

“I’m not fucking sitting!” Peter snaps, spinning on his heel. He starts pacing instead. “I don’t care if it wasn’t personal, you were willing to kill so many people, and for what—“

Just as he’d turned around, Peter had found himself on a ferris wheel, the one Ned and Betty had been trapped on. He suddenly doesn’t have any more room to pace; instead, he’s caged in with a wild animal. Beck sits across from him, looking up expectantly, eyes bright and open and honest and trusting, like a puppy. The ferris wheel jerks and Peter finds himself forced to sit down.

“Thank you,” Beck says, and he really sounds exactly like that last night Peter had looked at him through the bar’s windows with pure admiration.

Peter feels a twinge at that, and before he can help himself, he asks, “Why did you have to turn out to be a bad guy?”

“The term ‘bad guy’ is relative,” Beck says. “But yeah, I’m a bad guy. I was wronged, but I’m trying to make the best of it now. Remember how all of those reporters got in your face and wanted to know if you were the next Iron Man? Remember how lost and freaked out that made you feel? Mysterio would have shielded you from all of that. He still can, if you let me.”

Peter shakes his head. “You weren’t there for that. You couldn’t have possibly known about that.”

“You talked about it, back when we were friends.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Beck gives him that weird, consolatory smile, like they actually are friends bantering with one another. “Yeah, pretty sure you did.”

Peter’s about to fire back that no, he didn’t, when a thought strikes him. _Did he?_ He feels like they talked about a lot of things, before he learned who Beck really was.

No longer confident in that argument, Peter retorts, “What does it matter, anyway? You’re dead.”

“Am I?” Beck asks, cocking his head at him.

“Yes. I watched you die.”

“Did you? Or did you just see me injured? Was there any blood? Did you check my pulse? My breathing? Or did you just take one look at me, the real version of me that you hadn’t even seen with a gun to your head, and decide yeah, he’s gone?”

Ice in his veins. That’s what Peter feels. As the ferris wheel swings around and fireworks explode overhead in a completely empty town square, Peter feels a pure coldness wash over him, in him. His breath feels short as he’s barely able to get out a, “No.”

“I’m sorry, can you repeat yourself?” Beck is still smiling, expression shifting more towards glee.

“No, I didn’t personally check to see if you were dead,” Peter says, suddenly unable to look into those eyes. They’re so big and he can’t read them. It unnerves him. He stares down at his own hands instead, suddenly fidgeting.

“No, you didn’t,” Beck reaffirms. “And besides, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Even if I am dead, when did I ever leave you?” Peter looks up sharply as he feels Beck’s finger poke at his forehead. “I’ve been with you all along, haven’t I?”

“This is just a dream,” Peter says, though his voice has lost all conviction. “Just another dream.”

Beck shrugs. “Sure. Is that what the next one will be, too?”

“The next one,” Peter says, voice deadened.

“Yup,” Beck says. “Look, Pete, I’ve gotta be honest with you here. I do like you. You’re a good kid. I was hoping we could get our superhero friendship back, and I think we’ll get there one day. Not tonight, clearly, but one day. And I think we’ve progressed far enough in our relationship to be beyond stupid gimmicks like me shooting your friends in the head, or recreating some famous murder, or bringing up old skeletons from your closet or pointing out how your abandonment issues make you terrified of creating new ones. But you’ve got to understand: the latter is where you’re headed, alright?”

“What do you mean?” Peter should be jumping out of the ferris wheel. He shouldn’t be engaging. But he feels a sense of defeat creeping up his being, and he doesn’t know if he has the energy to fight it. Not after— He doesn’t even know which number dream this is, or if it’s all been only one.

“Think about it,” Beck says. He leans forward and his eyes bore holes directly into Peter’s own, and Peter can’t help but believe every word he says, it’s so open and honest and real. “How much longer can you keep this up for? And I don’t mean the dreams, and I don’t mean refusing to go to sleep so you don’t have to dream. I mean all of it. Say you go back to your day-to-day life. How long do you think people will put up with you having to constantly reaffirm to you they’re who they say they are? You can’t walk into science class and get your teacher to tell you something only the two of you would know every single day. Eventually, people are going to get tired of you.

“Even your friends and family. Surely, they’ll say they understand, and they’re there to help you and they’ll never abandon you. But what you won’t see is how tired they are. There’s only so much someone can stand being around someone like yourself, someone who can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Your impression of your aunt is very sweet, and it sounds like you two have a really good relationship. That’s good. I’m happy for you. But even she won’t be able to handle you after not too long. She’d never admit to it, but you’ll break her down. And unlike your friends, who can abandon you with only a little bit of guilt, she won’t have that option. She’ll have no way to escape you and all the additional hardships you’ll bring to her life. You’ll ruin her.

“Peter, I need you to listen to me. I’m the only one who can possibly be there for you now. You’ll scare everyone else - and who knows what you’ll end up doing with that little super strength of yours? - and you’ll put them in danger. Not by having their relationships to the notorious criminal known as Spider-Man revealed, but by wearing them down mentally to the point they can’t stand to be around you anymore and they have to escape for their own good. And that’s only if they’re lucky enough to avoid a psychotic break and you actually killing them. Because you’re capable of that, aren’t you?

“But I know exactly what you’re going through. I can help you. You have to understand that: I’m the only person left in this world who will stay in your corner. And the sooner you get it, the better off everyone will be.”

Peter leans down so his eyes are level with Beck’s. He shifts his gaze to stare down at his hands, which have started shaking. He can’t force them to stop. The little voice in the back of his head has gone quiet, dead. Beck’s words swirl around him, become his new atmosphere, the air he breathes. 

He feels like he did after he forced himself to stay up for nearly four days straight.

Only one last thing comes to Peter’s mind. Just one more thing he can think of to do.

He asks, “Why are you doing this? Your plan failed. It’s over. So why keep going?”

It’s quiet for a moment. Then Beck shifts, stretching out to take Peter’s hands in his own. Peter looks down at Beck’s hands covering his, then looks up into his eyes.

“Because you got in my way,” Beck says, not breaking their shared gaze. “So I’m going to get in yours - for the rest of your life.”

* * *

Peter’s eyes shoot open, his chest heaving in panicked, quick breaths.

He blinks rapidly, eyes finding a spider dangling from its webbing at the ceiling corner just across from him. It looks back at him, he thinks. Or maybe it doesn’t. It’s just a spider. 

His foot throbs, like it’s been cut a little.

Gingerly, Peter brings himself up into a sitting position. It’s fine. He’s fine. It was just a dream.

He slowly shifts his knees up, hugging them to his chest. He rests his forehead down on top of them and begins to cry.

The weight of his bed shifts, someone joining him to sit down at its side. Peter feels the new presence behind him but doesn’t pay it much mind, too preoccupied with his pounding headache and the sensation that his lungs aren’t getting any air, though his breathing is just fine now. He evened it out.

The voice, though, is close.

“Hey, don’t be upset. It’s going to be okay. I told you - I’ll always stay in your corner.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has also been [translated into Russian](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8420189) by an_vasy! I remain beyond honoured by all of the enthusiasm everyone has shown for this series.


End file.
